While we’re at it, I’d love to see a physical version of the seseame street pinbal table [2], though that one might be a bit more ambitious. :)
One could have the ball go quite low below the table surface and then use some kind of mechanical kicker to get it up to table level again near the bottom. It's possibly a unique problem, but seems to be much less work than building the rest of the table.
A bit like Star Trek teleportation.. is it you, or a copy of you?
You might be able to make the kickback lane work with a subway or maybe make the machine a widebody and go around the mess?